The Usurper's Crown by Sarah Zettel Read Free Book Online Page A

the work of rope, sail, net and the great loads of silver-blue fish to attend to. Omens for the misbegotten voyage were remembered, and Grace’s wild ways. Her mother was a Catholic, it was said repeatedly, with many a sagacious nod, and her sister at twenty-three showed no signs of marrying, even with Everett Lederle hanging about her door like a hungry dog.
    With all this gossip, all of it relishing its own stories, all of it essentially wrong, Avanasy found it hard to lose himself in the work, as he usually did. By the time they came in at late afternoon, it was all he could do to make himself help with sluicing the decks and hanging the nets up to dry. As soon as he was able he retreated to the shack on the shore where he lived amidst a cluster of other fishermen, each in their own summer shack. Come winter they would all head across to the mainland and turn to timbering for the season.
    Come winter, what will you do? Avanasy dropped into his rough chair and stared at the banked coals in his tin stove.
    After a time, he got up, poked the fire to life, put the remainder of the morning coffee on to heat, and lit his pipe with a splinter. He’d acquired the habit of both the brew and the bowl shortly after coming here, observing them to be the norm for the men around him, and he had to admit he found them both pleasant enough, if harsh. Like the backbreaking work on the boats, there was a rough enjoyment to be had in them, along with the singing, the gossip, the drink, and the wild beauty of the islands. He’d thought himself content. Not comfortable, to be sure, and there were days when the easy familiarity of his fellow fishers could still slap up hard against his pride. But content. Content enough.
    Until last night.
    He’d lied when he told Ingrid he’d been awake for too much thinking. He’d woken because he’d felt a change in the air. Something unchancy, Roman Thorfeld would have called it, and that was as good a word as any. He’d felt such things before in this world on the far shore of the Land of Death and Spirit, but those sensations had been fleeting, momentary brushes with whatever spirit powers this world held. He’d felt nothing so strong and so steady since he’d left Isavalta. All his blood sang in his veins at the touch of power, real power, and he’d gone to meet it like a lover.
    There he’d found Ingrid Loftfield facing down a dead man, and about to die for it.
    He hadn’t even thought. He’d drawn his knife, and charged. Thankfully, the ghost had with him something of the living world it was using as an anchor, or else Avanasy would have done little more with his blade than annoy it.
    Not that the burning of that shawl has driven it off for more than one night . Avanasy sucked on the stem of his pipe, noticing only absently that its fire had gone out.
    He had not worked any magic since three days after he landed here. He’d woven himself a simple spell of understanding that he might speak with the people who now surrounded him. Or it should have been simple, requiring that he take pains and be precise in his workings, yes, but otherwise it should have been of no great moment. But the effort of it had laid him low for almost a whole day. Among the many strangenesses of this world was this truth — that the magic was buried deep in the fabric of soul and soil and it would be coaxed out only with great reluctance. So, Avanasy had abandoned the work of magic for the work of fishing. It had seemed no great sacrifice. He had believed that exile and Medeoan’s turning away had left him with little desire to continue as a sorcerer.
    But then had come that touch of the other world last night, the brush of power, and he’d woken hungry for it. No, ravenous. It could have been anything, any monster, any trickster, anything at all, and if Ingrid and Grace had not been there to bring his other instincts into play, he might have done anything at all to keep it by him, to feel that touch of power